Fuad: GT300 is a big new architectural change

[josiahsuarez]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/14109/1/
GT300 is a big new architectural change
Written by Fuad Abazovic
Monday, 08 June 2009 10:34

Not just GT200 40nm with DX11

Nvidia is trying to change the world once again. The company tends to make some big architectural changes and it did it with G80 / G92 and last time with its GT200 generation.


The next in the line of big conceptual changes and rethinking the graphics world as we know it is GT300. We don’t even know if the codename is right, it is at least to some people, but the chip is real and it should be coming either in late 2009 or early 2010. No-one, even at Nvidia, knows exactly when this should happen, but they all have high hopes it will be this rather than next year.

Since Nvidia is talking and thinking more about the computing market than about graphics dominance, it is easy to believe that the new chip will be fitted for massive parallel computation and it should be much faster in this GPU Cuda, DirectX compute, OpenCL world. It is only natural that performance per watt will increase and that with 40nm you can expect many transistors. DirectX 11 support is naturally there but DX11 will only matter when the big games supporting it comes, and its unlikely that we will get any important titles before deep in the 2010.

Without a doubt one thing is certain. Once it comes, GT300 will be very interesting chip.

[Heinz68]

The GT300 needs some big architectural changes mainly for the DX11. They would have need that even for the DX10.1.
Since ATI has the DX10.1 already for long time they need much less changes getting in the DX11.

As for Cuda, I did see couple surveys showing VERY few gamers care about that.

Anyway I believe the GT300 is going to be great chip at least based on some of the rumors. I might even buy the dual GPU version of GT300 if there is going to be one on time at reasonable price.

[Atomizer]

However, as ATI themselves stated, developers are already working with DX11, unlike the takeup on DX10, didnt they also say that DX11 stuff will be out not long after launch? Which compared to DX10, should mean less then 6 months.

Most gamers dont see what GPU compute will do for them, thats why they arent interested in it, however, with GPU compute, all things previously run on the CPU, will now be able to be calculated by the GPU, we already had physics on the GPU(though not very common yet), and I agree that Cuda itself isnt that good, and wont be adapted by many developers at all since it only runs on nvidia cards, DX compute and OpenCL however, will have massive uptaking since itll work on all new hardware, not just nvidias stuff.
Especially with all this new stuff people are talking about, like real-time raytracing can now be done within the GPU, instead of on the CPU, and now we can have massive integration of GPU physics, now that all new GPUs will support it, instead of the "tech demos" like the special UT3 levels.

[josiahsuarez]

CUDA was not initially developed to appeal to gamers, it was for the (very profitable) HPC market. computers aren't just used for videogames.

CUDA is all about expanding the use of the GPU beyond just gaming

[shadow001]

CUDA was not initially developed to appeal to gamers, it was for the (very profitable) HPC market. computers aren't just used for videogames.

CUDA is all about expanding the use of the GPU beyond just gaming


And that's what direct computing(DX11) is for....Ati showed a tech demo of NPC's where the GPU was doing the A.I. calculations for instance.


And for those not using a windows based O/S,it's where OpenCL comes in,since it's open source(Free),works with Linux and the mac O/S,regardless of the video card in use....So where does this leave CUDA in the longer run?

[Ancient76]

However, as ATI themselves stated, developers are already working with DX11, unlike the takeup on DX10, didnt they also say that DX11 stuff will be out not long after launch? Which compared to DX10, should mean less then 6 months.

Most gamers dont see what GPU compute will do for them, thats why they arent interested in it, however, with GPU compute, all things previously run on the CPU, will now be able to be calculated by the GPU, we already had physics on the GPU(though not very common yet), and I agree that Cuda itself isnt that good, and wont be adapted by many developers at all since it only runs on nvidia cards, DX compute and OpenCL however, will have massive uptaking since itll work on all new hardware, not just nvidias stuff.
Especially with all this new stuff people are talking about, like real-time raytracing can now be done within the GPU, instead of on the CPU, and now we can have massive integration of GPU physics, now that all new GPUs will support it, instead of the "tech demos" like the special UT3 levels.

What developers, what games? Did i miss something?

And GT300 should be MIMD GPGPU, not another DX "native" GPU.

[AirRaid]

I believe ATI's GPUs have been closer to DX11, not just because they've had DX10.1, but even before that with their DX10 parts starting with R600, they've had a tesselator and other bits that made their GPUs closer to DX11 than Nvidia GPUs.

[Atomizer]

What developers, what games? Did i miss something?

And GT300 should be MIMD GPGPU, not another DX "native" GPU.

This is where I got it from: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20090605060657_ATI_Expects_a_Wave_of_DirectX_11_Ga me_Titles_to_Ship_This_Year.html

ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, said that the adoption rate of the next-generation Microsoft DirectX 11 application programming interface (API) by game developers is rather high and that the company expects to see “a wave” of titles supporting DirectX 11 already this year.

“We now have more startups with DirectX 11 than we saw at this stage with DirectX 10. […] After DirectX 10 was formally released in the very end of November, 2006, there was a lag of something like 5 months before the very first [DX10] title arrived. We expect a wave of [DX11] games to arrive during this calendar year,” said Richard Huddy, senior manager of software developer relations at AMD/ATI, at a conference on Thursday.

Apparently, there are so many game developers working on titles that utilize the DirectX 11 technology that ATI’s developer relations team is working on full throttle to support them.

“Right now my problem is supporting enough game developers, not finding game developers [to adopt a new technology]. A big issue is to give sufficient support to game developers who want to work on DirectX 11 tech right now,” added Mr. Huddy.

The developer relations chief refused to say whether “numerous” game developers have already received their ATI Radeon graphics cards supporting DirectX 11 features, but indicated that the hardware itself is not needed to implement certain benefits of DirectX 11. For example, improved multi-threading support by the new API will boost performance of multi-core microprocessors in future games and some other optimizations will further improve performance of titles on any hardware, provided that it is installed into a system with DirectX 11.

Earlier this week ATI said that the first DirectX 11-supporting titles will emerge on the market from companies like Codemasters, Phenomic/Electronics Arts, Emergent and Rebellion.

Of course I know you cant trust everything handed to the media, but thats a pretty big claim, even though, IMO, this is not a plus for ATI, but a plus for DX11 in general, and of course, DX11 supported just means itll be an option, and probably wont make full use of DX11, just like previous DX9/DX10 hybrids, but if true, its still a much better start then DX10 had, mainly due to Windows 7 I imagine, and the fact Vista has a more established userbase now(and will also get DX11)